William Umsted State Park, Raleigh, NC
We left Virginia Beach and headed toward Raleigh, North Carolina to meet our friend Sam Ratto of Videri Chocolate. Arriving in Raleigh we had spare time before meeting with Sam, so we toured the Yates Mill and saw a great exhibit about the traditional method of grinding corn and wheat using huge water powered stone grinding wheels.
We then went and saw Sam, his wife Starr, and their son, Salem at their sweet home. Salem showed off his driving skills on the front side walk while Sam and Ned visited. After seeing their house, Salem toured their vegetable garden with Ned, and attempted to pick a green tomato while Ned held him in mid-air.
After dinner at one of Sam's favorite hamburger places, we toured the Videri Chocolate Factory. The stone chocolate grinder (melanger) in the lower left photo is one which Sam is now manufacturing for chocolate makers all over the world. Interestingly, it uses some of the same basic stone grinding principles to make very smooth chocolate as the corn and wheat grinding grist mill that we had toured earlier in the day. Salem finished off the evening by "serving" us all from a special restaurant menu he had dictated to his mom. Ned shows off the menu and his order of a doughnut, which cost $7.00.
Sam is one our favorite chocolate makers, and it was great to spend some time with him.
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